Exercising the brain with African American Literature

He Passed

“’Passing,’ this breaking away from all that [is] familiar to take one’s chances in another environment, not entirely strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely friendly.”

Nella Larsen, Passing

Had he not been my father, He might not have recognized me. I was arrayed in tattered, homely attire and covered in blood. This caused my clothes to look like filthy rags. My wooly hair had matted and become filled with debris. The soles of my feet were cracked like a dried-up brook. My skin was callused and rough; in appearance, I reflected that of a sinful creation.

In my right hand I held a strange apparatus large and perpendicular in shape. As my cracked feet dragged against the rocky ground, a man mashed a crown of sorts deep into my brow. Blood and sweat proceeded to dribble down my face. Without hesitation, another man kicked me in my side and my shoulder fell hard on the perpendicular object in hand. As I struggled to get up, still another man came and spat in my eyes. Eventually, as I was hoisted up and nailed to the perpendicular apparatus, I looked and saw my father. To him I could never pass as a sinful creation, for although my current appearance was nothing like his, his blood running through my veins made the difference…

After The beginning…

darkness came over the earth and a strange wind blew through the trees. I had felt this wind before. I turned to my Father and I turned to my brother and we knew that I was the only word that could rewrite this story. I looked into the glassy sea to see the me who would soon no longer be. I would hold this image near and dear to my heart, for I would never be this being again…this image would forever be different, it would forever remain changed. I walked back to the throne of grace and took off my crown. Kneeling before my father, I presented it to him asking him to hold it for me. He said, “Only for a while. For you shall wear this again, my son.” No one knew or understood what was happening. They all watched in amazement as I chose to lay down my sovereign ranking in the hierarchy of heaven to take up the lowly likeness of Man and forever alter the hierarchy of hell.

As I stepped toward the edge of the universe, the stars refused to shine. The sun and moon dimmed their lights for the Son was now in orbit. As I descended into the Milky Way galaxy, I noticed that my light grew dim as I approached the world I spoke into existence – earth. Her beauty had become tainted and her people were filled with a substance no creature before had ever seen – sin. It was when I became a fetus in the womb of this imperfect creature that I became completely out of place.

As I grew, I kept my true identity a secret. No one suspected anything out of the ordinary, for to the natural eye, there was no difference. My mother knew, but only because she knew whom my real father was. People of all countries and regions despised, criticized, and ostracized me; at times it was difficult to deal with. I had spoken, formed, and ordained their existence, yet no one seemed to care to take the time to look into my eyes or listen to my voice and hear the familiarity of their beginning. No matter what I did it seemed as though no one loved me.

My father gave me the go ahead and I began to tell them who I really was. I stopped trying to pass for a sinful creature because ultimately I wasn’t. I pled with them, asserting that my real father was in heaven! I healed the sick. I multiplied fish and bread. I walked on water. I raised the dead! But none of this mattered to them. I could tell them of my biological relationship to God, I could show them that I too could do the things of God, but ultimately, to them I did not look like God…

That’s what happens when divinity mixes with humanity…The sinful, dominant genes of humanity become overpowering, resulting in my human appearance keeping many from recognizing the divine blood running through my veins. The majority of them felt that their God could not resemble them, so they refused to accept me in my humble state. They lynched me on a cross for being human and trying to pass as God.

What they didn’t understand was that I was God trying to pass as human…

As I hung there with the crowd yelling obscenities at me I saw him, my father. I looked deep into his eyes and said, “I am lonely, so lonely…I cannot help but long to be with you again, as I have never longed for anything before; and I have wanted many things in my life…You cannot know how I reflect on the bright images of that I that I once was…Of the we that we once were…It’s like an ache, a pain that never ceases…To remember who I was…what we were…what I must now be…What we’ve had to become…I had to do something and this was the only way…I do not fault thee…I simply long for us three to reunited be…”

To me such an enormous exchange of power and prestige was nothing.

I loved them…I couldn’t let them die…I had to save them…

And so, with arms wide open I said to my father, “I have glorified you on earth. I have finished the work, which You have given me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. For I have forsaken the recognition of men that I may partake in glorification with thee. For it is written, ‘blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

“Through all the lowly experiences of life He consented to pass, walking among the children of men, not as a King, to demand homage, but as one whose mission it was to serve others.”